Shadows and Granite
by Nmoreblack
Summary: They meet under a full moon and he's not entirely sure she's real. He figures it's worth the risk to find out. Modern Day AU.


**Author's Note: This was a submission for Prompts in Panem, Round 3, Day 3. **

**Visual Prompt: Cemetery**

**Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins.**

* * *

Katniss tugs the sleeves of her hoodie out from underneath the cuffs of her over-sized leather coat and pulls them over her frozen fingers. Her hoodie is soft and helps warm her hands better than the stiff, cold leather that acts as an outer shell to her many layers. The ground isn't frost-covered, but it will be soon enough. The moon is bright and full in the sky and it should make her feel better, more secure-but being able to see every detail of her surroundings in the late night hours doesn't do anything to comfort her. This isn't the kind of place to visit in the night, but she has no other choice. Prim is asleep and in bed, thinking her sister is just one room over. She feels slightly guilty at sneaking out and leaving her sister alone-or as good as alone, considering the state of her mother holed up in the master bedroom- but their neighbor, Hazelle, promised to keep an eye out and there was understanding in the older woman's eyes that Katniss didn't have the words to properly thank her for.

It's not peace of mind that she finds when she comes here; she's seen enough to doubt that such a thing even exists. But somehow, even amidst the cold stone slabs and the swaying trees and the eerie silence, she feels like she can actually breathe. She can narrow everything down to just her senses-cold breaths in and out, damp grass beneath her, perfectly etched letters on granite. The sensations are untainted by complicated thought or worry. The only time anxiety burns in her gut is when she hears noises she can't place or movement out of the corner of her eye. She finds it distracting, but in a good way, irrational fear causing her adrenaline to spike and forcing her to live only in the present moment where instinct takes over. She almost understands why people bungee jump or cliff dive or even go on crazy benders. But she can't afford to think that way. This is the riskiest thing she'll allow herself.

She traces the letters of her father's name on the stone. It has become such a ritual over the past few years that she does it unconsciously. The silence of the night and the practiced motion of her hand lulls her into an almost blank, meditative state.

Until she hears a snap.

Her head shoots up. _It could have just been a twig_, she tells herself, _it's not necessarily spirits rising from the dead or whatever._ But this is a _cemetery_ and it's past midnight and there shouldn't be people just wandering around, snapping twigs.

She searches frantically for the source of the noise and though her night vision is good and the full moon is helping, there are too many trees and shadows playing tricks on her mind.

"Fuck you, douchebags!" a voice shouts, young and male. She rolls her eyes.

It must be some stupid dare-teens traipsing into a graveyard at night to prove their manliness with no respect for the solemnity of the place.

She takes a breath and relaxes again. She hears a car start and pull away in the distance. She begins her quiet meditation again when she hears another _snap_...followed by several more and the sound of heavy footsteps disturbing the ground.

A boy appears from behind a tree nearby. He seems to be about her age, blonde with wide, round eyes that appear almost black in the moonlight. He's stocky with broad shoulders she can make out even through his puffy coat, but his whole demeanor, from his ambling walk and eyes that dart around warily, makes her feel a little easier in his presence-or as easy as she can feel alone in a cemetery at night with a strange teenage boy.

She sits very still, used to practically camouflaging herself from prey, but the way his eyes search with every step he takes makes it impossible to miss her.

"Shit!" he shouts, his whole body jerking. She shoots him a wry look when he almost trips over himself. He seems to be catching his breath, chest heaving, as he takes her in, eyes wide and curious, the horror of the previous moment slowly dissipating.

She turns back to the gravestone, expecting him to continue walking, but when she doesn't hear the loud footsteps continue, she looks back up at him. He's studying her with an open expression. He shifts his mouth to the side in a half-smile.

"Hi."

"Hello," Katniss says slowly.

He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and ambles closer. She braces herself, hands perched on the grass, ready to push off and run if she needs to. He's about the least threatening guy she's ever seen, but it's so hard to tell with high school boys, especially if he's been drinking, and she's heard enough horror stories to be cautious. Not that she has much one-on-one experience with guys herself, unless you count Gale, which she doesn't because he's more like a protective big brother.

"Uh, you okay out here?" the boy asks.

"Yes," she replies shortly, and because she's annoyed that he's insinuating that _she's_ the one who's out of place, she continues. "Are you?"

He barks out a laugh and looks sheepish.

"Um, not really. I'm kind of lost."

"Because you meant to go to the mall...?" He laughs again and the sound is foreign in this place.

"Nah, um," he starts, running a hand through the hair at his nape. "I'm supposed to be here. At the cemetery, I mean. But my friends sort of ditched me."

"A dare?" Katniss asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah well, I thought so," he admits. "But apparently it was just a practical joke on me."

"Ah," Katniss responds. She averts her eyes, waiting for him to walk away. He doesn't. When she glances back at him again, he's staring at the moon.

"You know, it's actually kind of nice out here," he notes wistfully, his warm breath visible in puffs against the night air.

"Is that why you were frantically searching for the exit?" she asks dryly.

"Nooo," he draws out, his cheeks pink from the cold, and maybe from something else. "That was more because of a, um, general fear of...spirits, zombies, bodies rising from the grave. That kind of thing."

She exhales on a short, barely audible laugh. His lips quirk up in response and she notes the dimples in his cheeks. This kid could really get away with murder if he wanted to.

"Understandable." She plays idly with her shoelaces.

"_You're_ not a ghost, are you?" he asks, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Not the last time I checked," she says, before pausing in thought. "Although, maybe I am and I don't know it."

"Whoa...that's freaky," he says, sounding semi-serious. She laughs, more of a giggle this time, and again his face lights up in response. She feels far too silly for a girl chasing her father's memory in the middle of the night. But this boy doesn't know her. Not her past, the one that reads like some sad orphan tale straight from Dickens, or her present, where she shirks from most meaningful human interaction. Maybe right now she can just be the girl who isn't afraid of ghosts and doesn't mind laughing in a cemetery.

"I'm Peeta," he says, breaking her out of her reverie. He holds his hand out and the gesture is oddly formal-most high school guys would give a goofy wave or one of those arrogant head nods-but somehow it seems fitting. She doesn't stand, but she does reach her arm out from where she's sitting.

"Katniss."

Their hands meet, both cold from the chilly night air, and where her fingers curve over his hand, she can feel the ridges of a few scars. Otherwise, his hand is large, but surprisingly soft for a man's.

"That's a relief," he breathes out, not releasing her hand when she tries to pull it back.

"What?" she asks warily, beginning to feel panicky. He lifts their joined hands and twists them so hers is on top. He smiles.

"My hand didn't go through yours. Corporeal," he notes with a small smile. "I guess you're not a ghost. Or you're a really talented one."

She feels her face screw up into an awkward, skeptical smile because this boy is _strange_ but she feels at ease when he finally releases her hand as she pulls back.

"So, Katniss," he says thoughtfully. His eyes scan the name on the headstone in front of her. "Katniss...Everdeen?" He gives her a nervous but questioning look.

She shoots to her feet.

"Hey, wait!"

She doesn't. The grass is slippery with condensation but her feet have always been steady. Which is more than she can say for the boy trailing clumsily behind her. She's too angry to feel any sympathy when he falls.

She hears a thud and a small yelp from him, but she barely glances back.

"Wait, I'm sorry! That was-"

"None of your business!" she shouts. But when she doesn't hear him following, she glances back of of curiosity. He's gingerly trying to steady himself on his feet again, but it's clear from the way he's standing that he twisted his ankle in the fall.

She turns, her hands on her hips. She's already annoyed with herself for hesitating. He's struggling to limp and he braces himself on a thick slab. His eyes widen after a moment and he jerks his hand back like it's been burned, clearly realizing that he just tried to used a headstone as a crutch. He looks completely ridiculous.

She stalks back to him before she can give it a second thought. He looks up, genuinely surprised, and she slides her arm around his waist. His eyes widen even more.

"Hold on to me," she snaps at him. "You're going to fall into an empty grave or something."

"They really _have_ those?" he asks worriedly, placing his arm around her shoulder. She rolls her eyes at him.

"Come on," she orders, propelling him forward. He leans into her heavily, placing most of his weight on one foot and using her for balance.

They walk in silence for a few moments and she can feel him studying her face. She just wants to get him out of this place, do her good Samaritan duty, and get home to her warm bed. And she wishes he would stop looking at her.

"I really am sorry," he says. She glances at him and his eyes are sincere. She can make out now that they're blue from the thin rim around his pupils, large in the darkness. "I was prying. It was tactless."

She slows her pace slightly but says nothing. His large presence is looming above her and around her and she wouldn't call it comforting exactly, but it certainly doesn't seem threatening, and the warmth of his jacket pressed against her is keeping her from shivering.

They walk on silently for a few more minutes, shuffling slowly together, but she notes that this is the quietest he's been since she met him. Soon, she sees the cemetery gate up ahead.

"Did you at least drive your own car?" she asks him.

He seems to halt for a moment, jerking her back in place before continuing along. She looks up at his face and it is flushed, most definitely not from the cold.

"Um, no," he says, sighing heavily.

"This is just occurring to you?" she has to ask, though she's been pulling him along without question this entire time.

"Well, I sort of didn't get that far. I just thought, 'Jesus, I'm in a graveyard at midnight, _alone, _my friends are dickheads'...then I saw you and got scared shitless." He sees the look on her face and scrambles to correct himself. "I just mean-you know, I thought I was alone out here and when I saw you I thought-"

"I was supernatural?"

"Yeah, maybe," he says, grimacing. "God, I don't even know the name of a cab company." They make their way through the gate to the street and her truck is parked along the curb. She hesitates.

"You can't call your parents?" she asks.

"Um, no," he says, avoiding her eyes. There's a tightness to his voice that wasn't there before. "That wouldn't go over well." He takes a deep breath, releasing her from his hold. She drops her arm from his waist. He leans on the gate, seeming to be lost in thought, before directing his attention back to her.

"Well, thanks for the help, Katniss." It's weird to hear her name on this stranger's lips, but it sounds almost reverent coming from him. She catches a whiff of rosemary.

"I can give you a lift," she says without thinking. Her voice comes out sounding irritated, but inside she's inexplicably nervous. She doesn't know what possessed her to throw out that offer, but what kind of person would she be to just leave him standing out here alone at night? He seems like he can take care of himself, but so can she and she wouldn't want to be stranded out here without a lift until morning.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his gaze searching. She shrugs a shoulder in response, biting her bottom lip. She looks up at him and he looks to be suppressing a smile. "I'm not a serial killer or anything. You can trust me."

It's a silly thing to say seeing as they just met and he can't exactly prove any of that, but she just sighs and answers, "Good to know."

He follows her to her truck and when she reaches the driver side door, she jolts a bit on feeling his presence behind her and for a moment she thinks this is a really, _really_ bad idea. But he just opens her door for her. She hops in, he shuts it behind her gently, and her eyes never leave him as he crosses in front of the truck to the passenger side and pulls himself up and inside, his arms clutching the roof and the door, his weight on his good leg.

He buckles his seatbelt and it snaps her out of her daze. She does the same and when she's finished, she sees him brushing a blonde lock of hair off of his forehead. He looks up and smiles at her warmly.

"Where to?" she asks brusquely.

"Oh, uh, you know the square in Merchant Quarter?" he asks and she nods shortly. "I live about a block away from there. I can direct you when we get there."

"Okay." She rubs her hands together quickly before starting the engine. She pulls away and feels oddly fidgety when they reach the first stop sign. She thinks about turning on the radio, but that seems too conspicuous and she doesn't want him to sense how uncomfortable she is.

She stretches out her fingers over the steering wheel, willing the blood to circulate. As soon as her foot is back on the gas pedal, she sees his hand reach forward and turn on the heat. Normally she'd be annoyed if anyone tried to mess with any of the nobs or settings while she was driving, but she's thankful for the warmth and from the corner of her eye, she could see that his hand was shaking slightly as he did it.

She checks her mirrors too often considering the streets are deserted, but she wants to keep her gaze from flicking to him.

"So you live nearby?" he asks, his voice sounding deeper in the confined space of her truck. She nods, chewing on her bottom lip again.

"I've never seen you around," he notes. "I go to Capitol." It's a private high school in the area. She's never been there, doesn't know anyone who goes there, but she hears the campus and grounds are beautiful. They would be.

"D12," she responds, referencing her own public high school.

"I'm jealous," he says and she shoots him an incredulous look. "I'm just saying, Capitol's very...I don't know. Fake. Lots of old money, spoiled kids. Guys who wear boat shoes, girls who wear $300 jeans. That kind of thing."

"And you're not like that, I suppose?"

He has the decency to look sheepish.

"Well, my grandparents are. They pay for it. They insisted. I didn't have much of a choice. My dad's not like that, though. He runs the bakery in town. Built it up from nothing." She sees the pride in his face and can recognize that, really, it doesn't come from accomplishment; it's borne out of love. Because she has that same look on her face when she thinks of her father; it doesn't matter that he was just a poor coal miner. He was her hero-still is-and she's proud to come from that.

She glances over at Peeta and he has a soft look on his face and the ghost of a smile. She realizes, belatedly, that she's wearing the same expression and she feels slightly vulnerable at being so unguarded, especially when he picked up on it so easily.

"Sooo," he starts and she's annoyed that he's one of those people that feels obligated to fill the silence. But when he continues, she realizes that he's probably been working up to this question for a while. "What were you doing in the cemetery in the middle of the night?"

She expects him to be eying her warily, but when she glances over, he's staring out the window. His hands are fumbling in his lap though.

"It's peaceful," she answers. He nods as though this makes perfect sense. But it can't. Not to a boy like him with friends and a family, someone who would only visit such a place on a dare.

"Don't you get lonely?" It sounds naive, but it's the right question to ask.

"It's one of the few places I don't feel lonely," she answers and pulls up in front of the bakery in the square. She turns to look at him and he's studying her intently. His eyes seem bluer every time she looks at them. He doesn't look so young, so naive, illuminated by the dim light of the dashboard and the street lamps outside the window.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

"Where now?" she asks.

He quietly, almost reluctantly, directs her to his home which is situated close to the bakery.

She pulls up to a house that is large, but not stately. There are no lights on, no one waiting up for him to come home, apparently, and it appears cold and remote behind the perfectly trimmed hedges- so unlike the boy who lives there.

"Well, thank you for rescuing me, Katniss," he says and she laughs. He seems to hesitate before opening the door and slowly sliding out.

"Ice your ankle!" she blurts out before he can leave.

"I will," he smiles at her, dimples appearing again. "Be careful." His advice could refer to any number of things.

He starts to turn, about to shut the door behind him, when she speaks up again.

"Hey," she calls. He turns around, his eyes large and almost hopeful. "Congrats on winning the bet."

He smiles again, even wider this time, and says "Bye" so softly that he might as well have just mouthed the word. He shuts the truck door gently and limps up the walkway, glancing back at her a few times before she finally pulls away.

* * *

E-R-D-E

She pauses for a moment at a sound in the distance. It's almost like a howling and she wonders if there are dogs nearby, but the noise moves closer and swiftly, before she can get a lasting look, an owl flies over her head, _hooting_ as it goes. It brings a smile to her face. She's never seen an owl before and there was something other-worldly about its white, round face.

She hasn't been back in a few weeks, but Prim is at a friend's sleepover and the air in the house was too still as she tried to distract herself with a book and mindless television.

It's much darker tonight, only a sliver of the moon illuminated. She had to use the light of her phone to guide her footsteps while her eyes adjusted.

She begins tracing the letters again, trying not to think of blue-eyed boys and spices. The morning after their encounter, she wondered briefly if she hadn't imagined him or nodded off in the graveyard and dreamed him up. Maybe _he_ was the apparition. But after a few days, her self-control waned and she looked him up on Google. There were no mysteries in the modern world.

She searched 'Mellark Bakery' and found a few newspaper articles on its growing success. A few of the featured photos included a smiling Peeta and his father. There was some small mention of Peeta's mother and her family background, but that hadn't seemed especially important to Peeta when he'd mentioned them and from what Katniss could gather from the article, the bakery wasn't that important to his mother. Katniss was more interested in the descriptions of the foods anyway: flaky rolls and decadent mousses and hearty breads. It's a shame she can never go in there now.

For a moment, she thinks she can almost smell the food in the air as if her imagination had conjured them up.

And then he appears.

This time, _she_ jumps.

"Fuck!" she says under her breath.

He stands there, much as he had the last time, just a few steps away from the nearby tree and for a moment she really does wonder if he's real.

He looks equally surprised at first before he smiles shyly at her, one hand shoved into his coat and the other holding a flashlight. She stands up, struggling for words. He speaks first.

"Hi, Katniss. Sorry to scare you."

"What..." she breathes, "What are you doing here?"

"Um, just taking a stroll," he says after a moment and gestures at the flashlight. "Came prepared this time."

"Uh huh. Did you at least bring your _car_?" she asks.

"Well, yeah, I drove here myself so..." he trails off and although he moves closer to her, he fails to meet her eyes.

"Seriously?" she asks, almost laughing. This is the last place she can see a guy like him yearning to return to. "You liked it here that much?" She's joking, but he takes her question seriously.

"I dunno," he replies. "I had an okay time."

He had an _okay time_ being stranded in the dead of night by his friends amongst a maze of graves?

"How's your ankle?" she asks, at a loss for how to continue this interaction. He smiles at this, his body seeming to relax a bit and she's failed to notice until this moment that he's now standing mere feet from her.

"It's okay. Better, thanks." They shuffle on their feet awkwardly. She doesn't know where to take it from here. Maybe he came here to be alone, much like she did. She knows she should feel annoyed at the intrusion, but it's alarmingly good to see him again. His presence may change the mood of the place, but not in a bad way.

"You cold?" he asks and she shrugs because _of course_ she is. It's almost winter and no matter how many layers she puts on, the wind will still whip unpleasantly against some part of her body.

He pulls a pair of gloves out of his coat and hands them to her. She takes them tentatively and his fingers brush hers lightly. She raises an eyebrow and his neck flushes.

"You really did come prepared," she says, pulling the gloves on. They're slightly large on her, but the material is soft and warm against her cold skin.

"Yeah well, live and learn," he replies, his own bare hands shoved back into his pockets. She eyes him closely.

"So come here often, do you?" she teases. This time, his entire face turns red. "Peeta?" she questions warily.

He smiles at this. "You remembered." She realizes that this is the first time she's said his name aloud. She also remembers that she's not supposed to know his last name and prays that it doesn't slip out accidentally.

"You didn't answer my question," she says, steering them back to the matter at hand.

He opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again. He takes a deep breath in before releasing it. "I wanted to know how you were," he admits.

She stills. She can hear the owl hooting in the distance. She's the one avoiding his eyes now, but when she looks back at him, he's staring at her openly, awaiting her reaction.

"So you came here for me?" she asks lowly. He shrugs and his mouth tilts in a sheepish expression. She takes this as confirmation. "How did you know I'd be here tonight?"

At this, he looks away and clears his throat. "I didn't."

Her mind reels and she struggles to make sense of his answer. She doesn't know whether to be flattered or creeped out. Given their setting, she's leaning toward the latter. "You've looked for me...often?"

"Like I said, I just," he forges on with forced confidence, "I wanted to see you and check on you, I don't know."

"And you couldn't have done like, a Google or Facebook search like a normal person?" she asks sharply, annoyed that he feels the need to look out for her. She quiets the voice the tells her _she_ google'd _him_.

"I don't know your last name," he responds quietly. _You do know it_, she thinks. But she never confirmed it when he asked; she just stormed off. She's oddly touched that he didn't use it anyway to pry into her past. She imagines there are more than a few news articles and obituaries that would come up. "Besides, you gotta have some mystery in life."

She laughs. Of course he would think that. He runs his hand through the hair at his neck and she recognizes the gesture after only two meetings with him. The thought gives her pause.

"So to get a little mystery in your life, you come to a graveyard sporadically to look for a girl you don't know?" she questions.

"I do know you. You're Katniss," he says softly. "And not sporadically. Most nights."

Her mouth drops open and before she can respond, out of anger or leeriness, he continues.

"Besides, it's not so much about keeping the mystery as solving it."

"What does that mean?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

"What do you do when you're not hanging out in graveyards?" he asks. She contemplates walking away-telling him to mind his own business and refrain from stalking girls in cemeteries. But he clicks his flashlight on and holds it beneath his chin, illuminating his face in an eerie way like he's about to tell a ghost story. He gives her a serious, scrutinizing face and the image is so ridiculous that she bursts out laughing.

He tries to remain stoic, but his face lights up at her laughter.

"I don't know," she finally answers after catching her breath. Her sides ache. "Take care of my sister, go to school, read."

"What's your sister like?" he asks with seemingly genuine interest. He lowers himself to the ground and looks up at her expectantly. She realizes she wants to talk to him. Like sitting in silence and staring at a headstone and sharing silent thoughts with her father, she feels good in his presence. Like herself. It's just a different kind of conversation. He doesn't seem to expect more than that.

So she sits down and talks. She tells him about Prim and the stray animals she's always bringing home and he laughs in all the right places. She doesn't have many friends to speak of, but he doesn't seem to judge her for that, his face only drawing tight at the mention of Gale. She talks about wanting to get Prim through school so she can study to be a nurse, but he presses Katniss to talk about her own goals and responds empathetically when they come out uncertain and sketchy in detail.

In turn, he talks about his brothers, his friends at school (_not _the ones who stranded him here, he emphasizes), and his work at the bakery. He admits that he'd love to take it over someday. He even has plans for expanding its menu and adding lunch items. She finds herself watching his hands and the way they gesture when he speaks.

"You don't have to worry about your brothers wanting to take over?" she asks.

"Nah, they've got their own plans," he says, sitting cross legged and shaking one of them habitually.

"Oh, one of them's a lawyer, right?" she questions, picking lint off of one of her gloves (_his gloves_). She sees the shaking stop from the corner of her eye and finds him staring at her, a sly smile creeping onto his face.

"I don't remember telling you that," he replies.

He mouth drops open, only now catching her mistake. She scrambles for a cover. "Um, no, I think you did. Maybe you don't remember, or-"

"Katniss," he drawls. She shuts her mouth and huffs out through her nose, inexplicably annoyed with him and the chastisement she knows is coming. "Did you look me up?"

"Maybe," she says and continues over his answering laughter. "Whatever, so I did. Maybe I just wanted to make sure you really weren't a serial killer."

"And you were trying to make _me_ feel like a creep," he says, the sly smirk still on his face. She wants to smack it away.

"I'm not the one traipsing around graveyards-"

"Well, you kind of are," he cuts in. She scowls at him darkly.

"I'm not a creep!" she says, entirely too loudly.

"I know," he responds, the smirk leaving his face. "Me neither. We're not creeps. Maybe we're just...friends?"

He gives her a searching, almost pleading look and it's hard to ignore.

"You want to be my friend?" she asks skeptically. She has no reason to be. She's shared more with him in their two interactions than she has with most people-at least, not anyone who wasn't already firmly ingrained in her life.

He shrugs. "Yeah, that's good..._for now_."

At first, she rears back like she's been insulted, as if he's implying that she's disposable. But then she sees his sly smirk again (one that's becoming equally infuriating and enticing) and she realizes what he's implying. She feels her face flood with heat.

After a few moments, heavy with silence, he breathes in deeply and lets it out in a white mist.

"It's getting pretty late. I, um, have kind of gotten to know the schedule around here and there might be a groundskeeper coming around soon to chase us off," he says, standing up and reaching for her hands. She allows him to pull her up and their eyes meet, hands holding on for a moment too long.

"And he would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids," she says quietly, a weak attempt to lighten the moment.

Apparently, it works because he tilts his head back and laughs heartily. She just watches him, smiling.

He starts to turn and make his way towards the entrance, "Well, Katniss-"

"Everdeen," she cuts in. His head turns back to her swiftly. "It's Everdeen."

His gaze drifts to the gravestone nearby and hers follows. She stares at it for a moment before continuing.

"That's my dad," she explains quietly. "Braden Everdeen. He died six years ago."

It's more than she usually says about her dad to a stranger. But then, Peeta's not a stranger anymore.

She waits for the inevitable questions-_What happened? How did he die?_ _Do you miss him?_

"What did he look like?" Peeta asks. His head is still turned towards the gravestone so he can't see her answering smile.

"Like me," she laughs. He looks at her and smiles, too. "Dark hair, grey eyes. I didn't get his nose, but that's a good thing."

"You'll have to show me a picture someday," Peeta says.

"Okay."

They smile at each other again before turning and taking the path toward the gate, him leading the way with his flashlight.

"So...I was wondering if you maybe wanted to meet up sometime," Peeta starts, "You know, somewhere normal."

"I'm not that normal," she says dryly. "Sorry to disappoint."

"You don't disappoint me," Peeta responds lightly. "And you can choose the place. I meant it when I said I like it here, but I'm starting to feel like Bigfoot strolling around in the dark between trees."

She chuckles and pauses right before they reach the entrance. He stops and looks back at her in question, flipping off the flashlight and putting it in his back pocket.

She just wanted to stop-freeze the moment and live in the comfortable silence with him-but she's at a loss for how to explain that. So she pulls his gloves off her fingers and hands them to him.

"Here, so I don't forget," she says, chewing on her lip. He smiles at her and pushes her hands back.

"Nah, don't worry about it. I have plenty. We have a whole box of all these winter things, hats and gloves and stuff. My brothers and I were always losing them and once we all got to be about the same size, my mom just threw everything in a box and expected us to-"

She takes a swift step toward him, lifts up on her toes, and presses her lips to his, cutting him off. Her eyes are screwed shut tight. She finally opens one of them to peer at him and finds him standing there, frozen.

She lowers to her feet again, _mortified_, ready to sprint to her truck, when she feels his hands grab for her waist, hauling her up against him.

She's taken off-guard, much like he must have been, but when she feels his cold hand on her face, thumb caressing her cheek, she softens and responds. After a moment, her lips part and he slips his tongue in lightly before retracting it way too soon, causing her to whimper. She feels him smile against her lips and he takes her lower lip between his, nipping at it playfully for a moment before deepening the kiss again. She sneaks her hands into his coat and feels what must be soft flannel underneath.

She has her first kiss in a graveyard. It seems oddly fitting.


End file.
